In the 60s, Star Trek's Spock/Kirk shippers were sharing their steamy slash fics by mail via zines. And in the early 1900s, long before the Internet was even an idea in some nerd's mind, fans were already authoring their own versions of Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes stories. (Star Trek and Sherlock are still some of the most popular fandoms on the AO3.)

Imagine loving a story so much that you refuse to let it end. And loving characters and a world so much you just want to spend time with them there. Taking stories and characters and making them better. Fulfilling a need to see more people like you represented in media.